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Re: How to deal with a boss who is hostile to frumkeit
1. Do you job very well. Legally marginal employees are protected, but being a valued employee is a better strategy.
2. Be consistent and open about halacha.
3. Don’t try to pull anything (e.g. if you take off during the summer to go to the country, don’t even think about taking off hol ha-Moed or other days that don’t have a prohibition of melachas). Be willing to come in super-early and to work super-late to make up time. Be the one anxious to cover on Sundays (or Saturday night ) and Thanksgiving and their religious holidays.
4. If that fails, you can file a complaint against the company with the EEOC of the local equivalent. If you have hired an attorney, he/she can advise you on the details. Many large cities in the US have frum organizations that can help.
5. The CEO of a corporation is not relevant since you are working for the corporation, not the CEO. His personal animosity doesn’t matter; what the corporation does is what matters. Remember that most CEO’s are employees, albeit rich ones. If you are high enough in the corporation that you have anything to do with the CEO, the local frum legal community may now a member of the Board of Directors who can help.
6. If it comes to suing, large corporations have “deep pockets”, meaning that lawyers love to sue them since if they win there is a big payday (for the lawyers). The bigger, the better.
There are many job where a late start is possible. The problem is a late start means a late finish. And many frum workers prefer to start early and finish late in order to being able to take off Fridays and around our holiday periods. Most people prefer an earlier starting and ending time. Families with two parents sharing child care often prefer one parent starting late (after the kids go to school) and the other starting early in order to be home when the kids finish school. No big deal.
Popa bar Abba: In Israel the problem is that most Jews turned down the opportunity to return when offered, and the Arabs then moved in (we welcomed them as liberators – it was the Romans they expelled). The Arabs have been there for over a millenia (compare that to America where even in downtown Jamestown, Europeans have been living there for barely 400 years). In no other country has a claim of indigenous peoples been taken seriously when the dispossesion occured so far back.
GolemGorilla: You have a malpractice claim against your lawyer if he didn’t appeal to the next highest court. And as long as you sue (file a lis pendens) you can probably block the other side from selling or mortgaging the property since the person won’t have clear title. From your description of the legal system, it seems you don’t know much about law and have been exploited.
Lior: Are you talking about a mugger, or about a cashier who you claim shortchanged you. When you are arrested for mugging the cashier, you may have some trouble. Police tend to side with the storekeepers.
If there is a good reason not to call the police (e.g. you are an illegal alien, there are warrants out for yhou, etc.), I can see the point. But getting into a fight that you may not win isn’t in your interests. If there is no evidence that can prove you case, the one caught breaching the peace gets arrested.
Unless you sold him the land, his claim be challenged, and you have until the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, which in most American states is 20 years (but some are less). You may be unable to use the small claims court since many states would require this action to be brought in a court of general jurisdiction since it is an action to determine ownership of land. If you are in the US, you need to check your deed (in some countries you’ll need to check an official registry). In any event you need a lawyer. Disputes over land are hardly unheard of, in part since even when buying a house many purchasers don’t have the property surveyed. If you have title insurance, you might also file a claim since if your deed included the land, they are required to defend your claim.
P.S. Your reference to a “land office” suggests you are not in US, since a central land office sounds like a Torrens system – so contact a lawyer in your jurisdiction. Anyone who handles real estate matters should be competent to deal with this.
BarryLS1: Correct – meaning that the camera will also recall the customer’s assault on the cashier. Assault and battery (names vary between states) is usually a felony. If there is a video, then it should be quite easy to call the manager or the police. If the video shows you assaulting the cashier and grabbing cash, but not the cashier stealing your cash (and the cashier may know how to avoid being seen on camera), guess who goes to prison?
“Say Lior was shortchanged $5 which he watches the cashier slip into his pocket. Can he tiptoe around the cashier and pull his $5 out?
Can he take a different $5 from the cashier’s pocket?
I think most would agree Lior can do both and there is no need to “go to courts”
Do you disagree? Does anybody?”
SO the cashier, who in fact believes that it was his own $5 he put in his pocket, presses the “panic button” and the police will arrest: Lior — and not just for larceny but for robbery (the use of force to steal, a much more serious crime), and if the jury believe the cashier, Lior will have an opportunity to do kiruv work in a prison (not jail, prison, robbery is usually a felony).
Of course the cashier might decide to whack Lior with a large object (its self-defense), or perhaps the store guard (the cashier’s boyfriend, no doubt, comes over to do the whacking). Lior goes to the hospital, if he’s lucky.
Only if the shopkeeper uses excessive force will the shopkeeper be in trouble.
For a fish, the answer as to whether one can eat the fish is based on the simanim (my guess is that they would be unaffected). The same would also hold for mammals. But then there is the issue of whether you a tradition of eating the animal, beyond looking at simanim.
However for both plants and animals, there is the issue of whether one is allowed to breed it yourself, in addition to the question of using it. For example we are prohibited from creating mules but not from owning and using them. If the GMO involves cross breeding different species, then there are some interesting halachic question that will be answered when the practice becomes more common (probably in Eretz Yisrael, since few Jews elsewhere are into farming, and mixing two species is an issue for farmers (American Jews are more into eating kosher animals than raising them).
Shouldn’t the question be: May a shopkeeper use force to stop a thief who runs off with merchandise that wasn’t paid for? I believe the answer is in almost all legal systems is that the shopkeeper would be charged with murder for killing the thief, though in countries such as the USA the shopkeeper might be acquitted due to jury nullification (but don’t count on it).
There is a reason that one of the first mitsvos, applicable to goyim as it was one of the mitsvos of Bnei Noach, is to have a legal system. Settling disputes over trade good by blood feud is not a good policy.
charliehall: At the end of World War I, the Arabs, led by the Great-Great Grandfather of the current Jordanian King, who up to that point had been based in western Arabia, believed he had been promised a unified Arab state including all Arabic areas east of Suez (then as now the exact boundaries where the Turkish and Farsi speaking areas blend into Arabic areas was unclear). The zionists (e.g. Chaim Weitzman, then the universally respected leader of the zionist movement) and the hareidim (Dr. De Haan was their emisary) supported the idea. It would have led to a stable Arab state, with Jews able to move in and build a homeland, but not to subjgate anyone or make the Arabs into second-class citizens in a non-Arab, non-Islamic country. The partition was dreamed up by the Brits (with the help of the French) in order to prevent such a state as part of their “divide and conquer” strategy. The war between the zionists and the Arabs was originally a plan devised in London, and the zionists (and the Arabs) fell for it.
AZOLIS: I tend think that partitioning big countries to make small ones is “Balkanization” and doesn’t work. My opinion is that the partition in 1947 was a mistake, as well as the one’s a century ago, and that they should look at the boundaries proposed in 1918 (all Arab countries east of Suez, with a Jewish homeland within those boundaries). Its unreasonable to expect Arab Muslims to ever agree to be rules by others in that region, and that the zionists made a fatal mistake by switching from building up the Yishuv to building a medinah in which the Arabs are ruled by us.
However most Israelis and most American Jews support a two-state solution, so it isn’t reasonable to complain about a Jewish businessman supporting a policy that most American Jews also support.
Most Israelis prefer a two state solution (a Jewish zionist state and a Palestinian Islamic state). The alternative would end up being a state in which Jews and zionists are a minority (which is why the zionists favored in 1918, but very few do). Indeed, only the hareidim would find it tolerable to be in a non-zionist state dominated by Arabs – which is what a single state would lead to.
Maybe the person asking the shailoh intended to go to a co-ed gym to work out with improperly attired females, in which case the tseuvah “working out is asur” would be quite correct.
A second hand account of what a rav says, especially out of context, is meaningless. In published responsa the author makes the context clear.
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It has never been done, and cloned animals have some serious birth defects since apparently some cells reflect the age of the animal cloned, so you get a baby that may look like her mother but genetically is quite inferior.
No has claimed to have cloned a human. Therefore no Rav has ever poskened on the matter, and a posek based on a sci fi novel is meaningless except on Purim.
My guess is as as the woman cloned (it can only be done to women) and the woman who carries the baby to term (can be the sameone), are Jewish, the baby would be Jewish with the same halachic status as any other clearly Jewish baby whose father is unknown (though it might be argued she is the daughter of her maternal grandfather).
To the person who complained: ‘I’m kind of annoyed with all of human society’s rules about how a person is supposed to dress. “
1. It used to be worse (think about corsets and hoop skirts for women, and for everyone when wool was worn even in the summer)
2. Perhaps next gilgul you want to be dumb animal? Clothes are a human thing.
3. So you want to be nudist? (no problem with clothes)
4. So you want to be a hermit? (able to ignore what others think)
Penguins wear feathers (albeit brown ones when young). They have no choice. They are birds. They do keep kosher for the most part (eating only fish).
Among humans, only penguins, there are diverse styles and if you don’t wear what is in style people think you are weird. Among Americans, consider the problems of a man, other than Scot, who wants to wear a skirt instead of pants? And if you want to be well dressed in the US, you are very limited in the styles and colors of your suit (Obama got in trouble for dress code violations last summer since his suit wasn’t formal enough for his rank and was considered disrespectful). Fashion can be bizarre (look up what proper undergarments for a well dressed western European or American woman were in the mid-19th century – utterly weird — fortunately that style never caught on in frum communities in Eastern Europe or the Middle East).
So really its not that the frum community has weird rules, its that humanity has a weird way of doing things, and the criticism directed towards the frum community reflects the limited knowledge or perhaps sheltered background of the critics.
In America, a minority ideology that is, say, 20% of the country, will end up with little or no representation in the Congress, since you need a majority in any district to get elected. In Israel, such a minority would get 20% of the seats.
For example, Hareidim are roughly 10% of Israel. They typically get 10% of the seats. If Israel has a single member system, you would probably get an hareidi elected from Bnei Brak, and maybe two or three for Jerusalem (depending on how district lines are drawn), but that’s it. There average district in Israel would be over 50000 people, and in the rest of the country you won’t find areas that size that are majority hareidi. You would have perhaps three hareidim in the kenesset (there were 18 in the outgoing one), all focused on the local interests Bnei Brak and Jerusalem.
Lior: The American threshold is 50% (in some states you can squeak with about 40% in a three way race). The truth, is under the American system, none of the small parties would be in the kenesset – only Labor and Likud (and only a handful of others). The chaotic Israeli system reflects a Jewish tradition of trying to include all factions in the community.
old man: They are not using the word “boycott” correctly. Switching to a cheaper brand is not a boycott. It’s called “shopping around.”
If for example, they were refusing to wear Borsalinos and switching to a more expensive hat that would be perhaps a correct use of boycott since it clearly didn’t have an economic motivation. The fact the some kollel yungerleit aren’t aware that there is no halchic requirement to wear Borsalino hats is amusing at best.
Re: ” Today it seems local government is Big Poppa Dear Leader, that takes us all for fools, maybe they partially right “
Who voted Big Poppa Dear Leader into office.
The North Koreans have an excuse for having a fool as president – he came to power at gunpoint and stays in power at gunpoint. Americans looking for someone to whine about need only look in a mirror.
charliehall: Even Arabs and hareidim who oppose the existence state are allowed to vote (though many choose not to). Also unlike America, there has never been a serious problem of dead people voting, or of fictitious voters (having a population registry helps), whereas in America one party (the Democrats) have frequently relied on all sorts of shenangians.
Israel does have free elections, with the ruling party frequently being voted out of office. That’s fairly rare outside of western Europe and North America. And due to proportional representation, every ideology has a chance at being in the kenesset (even with a 3% threshold, in the US the threshold is 50%).
Isn’t snow what used fall from the sky back before global warming changed the climate?
All companies are in it for the money. That’s how capitalism works. It isn’t like their is a “Ministry of black hats” or a “Joint rabbinical committee on man’s hats” comandeering factories and giving exclusive contracts to manufacturers. Someone seems to think there is a clause in the Shulhan Arukh requiring purchased of Borsalino’s products rather than someone else’s.
If Borsalino is overpriced, other companies can (and do) offer competing products.
In a capitalist system, it isn’t a “boycott” if consumer look elsewhere.
to A jew who cares who wants a way to bring prices down:
1. Buy less expensive (less attractive) goods
2. Substitute goods
3. If the price is high relative to the cost of production, that will attract new suppliers, which will result in lower prices.
Observe what happened to the high price oil (with many screaming “peak oil”, and oil companies making record profits). Demand fell, supply increased, and prices fell.
Welcome to capitalism 101.
I suspect that many frum housewives would prefer a female plumber coming to the house (however it would be difficult from a frum girl to get trained as a plumber, but that’s a different issue).
There is not now, nor was there ever, a halachic requirement to wear a wig. Wearing a wig doesn’t even correlate with how frum you are. It is a an issue of fashion and style, which is of great interest to sociologists, economists and fashion mavens – but has nothing to do with Torah and Mitsvos.
Most rabbanim I know would dress respectably to meet you. Dressing respectably in public has nothing to do with the rank of whom you are dressing for.
We hired him. He’s our employee. Can you criticize the janitor in your shul if he leaves a mess? What about the cook in the pizza who messes up your slice? Your cleaning lady if you are rich enough to have one?
America is a democracy (small “d”) and a republic (small “r”), and the president is at most the senior civil servant – if there is an analogy to a ??? in American law, the constitution makes it very clear it is the “people”. Note how in England laws begin with “I the king/queen …” am making this law, whereas the American laws begin with “We the people…”. In a democratic republic, the leaders are just are fellow citizens whom we have assigned to do some work for us. Nothing more. If they want respect, they need to earn it.
1. Tznius (immodesty) – since in most countries people participate in a gym in short clothing
2. Pritsus (mixing) – even if everyone was fully dressed (e.g. wearing a sweat suit), there still is the issue of mixing of men and women
They read the graduation requirements, in advance, and meet them. Given that yeshivos teach students to master the materials, colleges with there “all you need to know to pass” standards shouldn’t be a big problem.
Photoshop!
Actually the leading movements in France are the socialist and the nationalists. The classic European liberals really aren’t a factor. France has had a significant migration of Muslims from its former empire including most of the terrorists and many of the security personnel killed by said terrorists.
1. In the original cases, the second one (Conservative conversion including milah), it might be a shailoh if it was valid? Would you use the person as a Shabbos goy or to buy your Hametz on Pesach? If the person is Shomer Mitzvah (as we understand it), it would be a shailoh.
2. Referring to Middle Eastern Jews (including Yemenites, Iranians, etc.) as “Sefardim” is a misnomer (just as referring to people who hate Jews as anti-semites is a misnomer). Their siddurim say “Sefardim v’Edot ha-Mizrach”, since the nusach of the Middle Eastern Jews (excluding those from Arabia) is closely related (study migration patterns to see why). Someone suggested using the term “Afro-Asian Jews” which is technically more correct but sounds too funky.
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HaLeiVi:
1. Only if it was dry land
2. Only if the water was above your head (one can easily drown in a swamp)
3. Only if those chasing you were drowned through no effort of your own
P.S. The idea that they crossed a giant ocean comes from a Christian mistranslation. Jewish sources never claimed they crossed the “Red Sea” (which is quite deep, and there is no reference to them going down and up and incredible slope, nor of any sort of bridge over the chasm popping up).
Has itg wasn’t in the Red Sea, it wasn’t anywheres near the Gulf of Suez or Arabia. The name implies a swamp, not an ocean. If it was important to know exactly, Humash would have included GPS coordinates.
Using “it” for a person is insulting in English.
Using the wrong gender (i.e. addressing a man as “Miss” or “Her”) is vastly more insulting than using “he/she” or “sir/madam”. Be happy English is less gendered than it used to be (at least the 2nd person, “you” is gender-free, and we don’t have to deal with an informal/formal 2nd person which in many languages is a good way to insult someone).
I am impressed the moderators had the linguistic skills to approve the posting. It’s been many years since the secular departments of American yeshivot taught Latin (which they did, back when it was a required subject for college admission).
Its possible to survive with using email and online banking, but it isn’t easy. If you avoid using credit or debit cards, you won’t need to check balances online to prevent identity theft (a.k.a. crooks raiding your account). The law still measures the period to report fraudulent transactions based on printed statements, though the card will usually stop working long before that. Some banks still send printed statements and return cancelled checks, but they might charge extra. Non-digital media do report news, weather, etc., albeit more slowly.
Obviously some lines of work are impossible, such as anything to do with finance, law, sciences, most retailing, etc. Applying for jobs without the internet is also a problem as most large employers expect applications to be online.
It might be easier to have one computer in an open area (no “sneaking a peak” without other family members knowing it) and limiting what it can be used for.
If forced to fight to survive, haredim would, but there are usually alternatives. At the time there were really no Torah centers outside of Israel (those wanting to learn Torah in Bavel and Egypt turned to Israel, and political conditions in Egypt and Bavel were problematic anyways). Under current conditions, hareidim would flee Eretz Yisrael rather than go to war with the hilonim.
Remember that at the time of the Hashmonaiim, the problem was primarily with the secular Jews who when defeated called in their Greek sponsors -this could happen again. However one has to remember that the other two regional powers at the time, Egypt (also Greek, but not friends with the Greeks based in Syria) and Rome (growing but not yet trying to conquer the eastern Mediterranean) supported Israeli independence as a way of weakening the Greek regime in Syria. Because the Arabs are scared of Israel, Israel isn’t likely to be buffer state in their eyes (though that explains most western support Israel – as a way of keeping the Arabs disrupted).
1. How do you define diesease?
2. Many medical conditions are largely the result of lifestyle.
3. Are you arguing wither addiction should be a factor in criminal liability? Should health insurance refuse to cover lifestyle related conditions (e.g. type 2 diabetes which is caused by eating too much and exercising too little)? What about cancers that correlated and may be caused by lifestyle choices?
4. It should be noted that the medical professions generally make more money by treating deseases, especially with drugs and surgery, then from preventing them through lifestyle counseling. Selling Janumet and insulin pays well, encouraging people to eat less and exercise more doesn’t make money for the health care industry.
Vaccines often hurt at the site of the vaccination. That’s normal. Anything more is a (very unusual) bad reaction.
Even if it works just as well as the “real” thing, both government law and the customers reliance or you to provide authentic goods would create many issues. Counterfeit goods usually are inferior to the real thing, but not always, so if it is counterfeit there is reason to worry.
1. Its actually a very broad number of countries if you base it on how they vote at the UN. If instead you look at whether these countries trade with Israel, the number shrinks significantly. For many countries, it is normal to condem Israel and then to buy Israeli goods. Indeed, many countries both denounce Israel at the UN, and buy Israeli produced weapons. An example of the “bark” being worse than the “bite”?
2. In many countries, the major products we import are produced by the local Jewish community for the kosher market so it wouldn’t accomplish much to boycott these products. The fact that a product has a kosher certification is probably much more important than the politics of the government of the country of production (and if the product doesn’t have a hecksher, why buy it to begin with).
Like African Americans, we are quick to assume a “hate” motive when subject to violence. It’s a function of history (some would say “paranoia” but then you get to the joke about is it really paranoia if someone is out to get you).
It turns out to have probably been an insane person, though his choice of target may reflect prejudice factors in his life or his community.
The “custom” began when Jews started coming in contact with Christians whose minhag was to give gifts for their winter holiday (details vary among countries – the custom goes back to the Roman holiday of “Saturnalia”, which is the origin of the holiday the goyim observe in December). A good argument can be made that giving presents at this time is clearly avodah zarah, since gift giving has always been part of the avodah of their holiday.
The “Hanukah gelt” custom involved giving a few coins to be deposited in a pushka.
popa_bar_abba: “they’re uncomfortable with the ethnic/racial element of Judaism. “
I believe they are uncomfortable with the religous element of Judaism. Gairus is basically naturalization. When you become a citizen you give up your previous loyalty, adopt the culture of the new country. In “normal” countries (US, France, Britain), becoming a citizen does not require you to adopt a religion. Frum Jews regard being Jewish as a matter of religion (being Jewish is about mitsvos), and secular Diaspora Jews see Jewishness as ethnicty (being Jewish is about gefilte fish and bagels), whereas zionists see being Jewish as being about being a loyal supporter of the State of Israel which is why they want the process of becoming an Israel, which includes geirus, to focus on zionism rather than Torah.
The Israeli left-wingers are fanatic zionists in the original meaning of the word (non-zionists lefties leave Eretz Yisrael as soon as they can). As good zionists they want Israel to be a normal state, which do someone whose focus is Europe, means there is a national religion in which everyone is a nominal members (note that piety isn’t a factor, this is a matter of patriotism). While they can tolerate a few non-Jews who are members of other religions, they want all non-Palestinian Israelis to be Jewish. Thus is someone wishes to be a good zionist, i.e. a patriotic Israeli, that is good enough for them to be Jewish. Their model would be the historic desire of many immigrants to join the established church, not out of a theological belief, but out of the desire to be normal. That’s good enough for them To the leftists, all the “Torah” stuff went out when Herzl and Ben Gurion replaced Avraham Aveinu and Moshe Reabbeinu, and they object to tying geirus to ideas that most Israelis have long rejected.
Elections are good entertainment, even in this case when the results are probably going to simimlar to the last election (Nationalist parties in control, but forced to form a coalition with the hareidim and/or the centrist block consisting of ex-Likudniks).
And at least the Israelis have elections. Many countries have other ways of picking leaders (see neighboring Syria for a popular alternative method).
A frum gym might be a good business oportunity. Remember most gyms are for-profit businesses. It could have separate hours for men and women (with separate staffs). While a JCC/YMHA might have separate hours, they really could do no more and the building would stay un-frum.
By “talk back” do you mean to disagree or contradict, or rather do you mean to be rude, crude and sarcastic. The former is always acceptable if done correctly, and the latter (which seems to be the primary method of communication online) is never correct regardless of whom is speaking. I have met many gedolim and never heard them “talk back” even to an Am ha-Aretz, kal ve-homer, it is incorrect for an Am ha-Aretz (or talmid) in speaking to a “rebbe” (regardless of whether one means an elementary school teacher, or a gadol).